SAVE VICTIMS OF DOMESTIC, SEXUAL AND CHILD ABUSE

Hello everyone,

I am Dr. Robert Kanabiro , a medical director of ROMIC MEDICAL CENTRE, a community based organisation with two branches; main branch in Jinja city (source of Nile city) and in Njeru municipality, Buikwe district in Uganda.

The background of ROMIC MEDICAL CENTRE

Romic Medical Centre was started by two good friends, both medical clinical officers i.e. Mr. KANABIRO ROBERT and Mr. BASIMBE GRACE.

In 2014 when Mr. Kanabiro Robert was on his practicum in Jinja regional referral hospital, he had picked so much interest in medicolegal medicine. One day when on his daily routine, he happened to receive a 15 year old girl who had presented with history of being defiled by an unidentified man on her way from a Borehole in Nyenga, Njeru Municipality, Buikwe District.

She had been brought for medical examination three times without being worked on because the line was always long. On examination, was found defiled, HIV and PREGNANCY status were still negative but could not be given post exposure prophalaxis and emergency contraceptive pills respectively because the 72 hours time had passed. After three months she was retested and found again HIV positive which meant that the offender had spread the virus to her during the incident of defilement. Had she been examined in time, she would have been saved from the virus. This experience touched him so much and even after his training he decided to serve these vulnerable victims.

Thus when the two met, they decided to establish Romic Medical Centre so that they could at least narrow the gap in medicolegal.

The works of ROMIC MEDICAL CENTRE

Right now, Romic medical Centre is a major private and community based organization providing reliable examination, treatment and documentation of police forms on victims and may sects of sexual abuses, domestic violence, child abuse, accidents, and all other kinds of assaults.

Romic has served the community since 2017 up to date helping vulnerable victims of sexual assault, domestic violence and child torture.

The summary of our project

Jinja is a district found in eastern Uganda and its where the source of the Nile is located. It’s boarded by Buikwe, Kamuli, Iganga, Mayuge and Luuka district. In all those districts the main economic activity is sugar cane growing, and this has made many people of different cultures to migrate to those districts hence high criminal cases related to sexual abuse, domestic violence and child torture. And on this very matter, it’s shown that police stations in Jinja and Njeru division receive about 1,000 of such cases per month which require medico-legal intervention by a qualified personnel yet there are very few available health facility with a full time medical personnel handling victims with these cases. This has made very many cases of sexual, domestic and child abuse fail to succeed in court. Hence justice to these victims not attained and offenders are released back into the community, victims left exposed to them, who again may re-offend them using threats or inducements.

Having noticed that there was a big public outcry, Romic medical Centre has always helped these groups of vulnerable children, girls and women at a subsidized price. But we have always been limited by resources yet the number to help is big.

Basing on the above mentioned challenges in the community, we opted to set up a free medico-legal services program where these victims and suspects will get examined treated and doctors go to courts up to give professional and expertise witness without charging any money. The broad goal of this project is to see that there is decreasing rate of medico-legal cases in the community and also improving access to justice for the vulnerable victims. The project given support from well-wishers will benefit largely the community and will still continue function even after the proposed 24 months of functioning.

The project beneficiaries

Target population and number of beneficiaries: girls and women victimized in sexual abuse and domestic violence as well as children, boys and girls victimized in child torture

It will benefit directly approximately 12,000 victims in 24 months and indirectly their parents, care takers, well-wishers and the whole community.

The budget needed for equipment

.Therefore on behalf of the organization and the community, I kindly ask for support in terms of money or equipment as per the budget below so that we can run the project smoothly.

Medical equipment, Laboratory equipment: CBC machine, chemistry analyzers, Ultra sound scan, X-ray machine, Electric centrifuge, laboratory incubator, photo calorimeter digital. All these items will be used to establish a well-equipped laboratory to ease the task of examination, identifying, and securing medical evidence which will stand credible in court settings and also help doctors to make correct diagnosis so that patients are treated correctly and efficiently.

MVA set, this item will be used in evacuation in cases of incomplete and inevitable abortion since cases of domestic violence and sexual abuse increases the risk of abortion

Wheel chair: at many times these assaulted victims are brought unable to walk, therefore this wheel chair may help the nurses to move them around

Motor cycle: in case where suspects cannot be brought at the health facility for example when they are violent, when there is a public threat to them, or when police does not have means to transport the suspect to the facility, our doctors are required to more to police stations to do examination from their therefore a motor cycle makes it easy and cheap for us to reach out to such police stations.

Motor vehicle: at times doctors are summoned by courts which are very far from the our facility yet they have to be there in time, this has always been hard to achieve by use of public means of transport most especially if the weather conditions are not favorable, therefore this motor vehicle will quicken and ease movement of our doctors to the courts and also in a decent manner.

The funds collected also will be used in the sensitization of police officers, about two million community members and also carryout continuous medico-legal education to medical personnel.

The project's estimated grand total is $70,996 USD.

Please, join us. Let support the victims

My dear friends join us and give a hand we welcome any kind of support. God bless you guys...

My personal email address is kanabirobert@gmail.com and Telephone contact: +256 773 001 616, +256 755 001 616 and for the organization is romicmedicalcenter@gmail.com. Registration number is JJA/09/2020/00456 by Jinja district local government P.O BOX1551, JINJA-UGANDA.

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